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Title: Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood by Fatima Mernissi ISBN: 0-201-48937-6 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: September, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.19 (32 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A delightful book.
Comment: The author, Fatima Mernissa, was a professor of Sociology at Muhammad V University, Rabat, Morocco. The book tells of her life growing up in her father's home. It describes the richness of her life, living among an extended family of cousins, aunts and sisters. It tells of nights of communal story telling and play acting, of special outings like going to the public baths and the movies and life in the country side. The men in the book have no names but the women are richly described with their many interests and backgrounds. What makes this book interesting and different is that it is told from the point of view of a 10 year old girl rather than an adult looking back on her childhood. Therefore the book is full of wonder as she is seeking to describe life, trying to figure out what life is about and seeking to define the concept of harem. She discovers that a harem in the city means being locked inside a very large house with a guard on the door and having to seek permission of the men of the house before a woman is permitted to leave, however in the countryside, harem means something much different. The book gives one another picture of women in the Muslim world
Rating: 5
Summary: The Fantasy and the Hope
Comment: It is rare and hard to find a book like this. So emic, so true, so feminine. Through the simple stories of her life as a child, Mernissi shows us the falseness of Western stereotypes and the tragedy of Islamic sexism. She shows us what a true harem is- the pure companionship of women, and not the sexual lasciviousness which the Western imagination dreamed up in it's ideal of the exotic- in the process revealing far more the degradation of Western society than they anything true of Arabic culture. But she writes with great honesty about her own people as well, and the control that a woman is constantly placed under, perceived as the "devouring vagina" (as she writes in another work, Beyond the Veil), needing to be controlled and put into it's place for the protection of men. One sees here, not through telling, but through story, how Moroccan women have so little freedom to be who they desire in a world where all that is public is also male. But we also see the beauty of women together in that same society, and through that, can dream.
Rating: 4
Summary: Very sad
Comment: This is a great book that describes a world that is foreign both to nonMuslims and the vast majority of Muslims. The book describes a world where females are shut out from the world, locked in a house, unable to live a normal life. Many of the women are starved for affection as a result of having to share their husband with other women. The story of women deprived of the things that should be normal, everyday life (monogamous marriages, jobs, schooling, shopping, charity work, interacting with men), who retreat to fantasy worlds is truly depressing reading. One reviewer described this as "Islamic culture", which it most definitely is not. The seclusion of women is a preIslamic cultural practice that has no basis is Islamic teachings. Unfortunately Mernissi leaves the impression that this is common behavior in the Muslim world. 99% of Muslim men are monogamous and many Muslim women live lives not much different from those of western women. In the most populous Muslim nations such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, India etc. this kind of lifestyle is nonexistent. Men and women are not separated in daily life and mongamy is the norm. Men who practice polygamy for any other reason other than for the purpose of caring for orphans are violating Islamic principles, not following them. I'm also troubled to see some Muslims condemning this book. Wake up, take your heads out of the sand and realise that there are many Muslims twisting Islamic teachings to oppress women. Does it matter that Islam gave women lots of rights if some Muslim men forbid the exercising of those rights?
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Title: Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in a Modern Muslim Society by Fatima Mernissi ISBN: 0253204232 Publisher: Indiana University Press Pub. Date: April, 1987 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Scheherazade Goes West by Fatema Mernissi ISBN: 0743412435 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women's Rights in Islam by Fatima Mernissi, Mary Jo Lakeland ISBN: 0201632217 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: November, 1992 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate by Leila Ahmed ISBN: 0300055838 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: August, 1993 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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Title: Street in Marrakech by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea ISBN: 0881334049 Publisher: Waveland Press Pub. Date: November, 1988 List Price(USD): $20.95 |
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